By meadowlakeNOW

La Loche shooter: Judge to sentence in Feb. 2018

Oct 21, 2017 | 1:44 PM

Almost two years and a month to the day, the youth who shot 11 people in La Loche in 2016, killing four, will be sentenced in his home community. 

The teen, who cannot be named as he was 17-years-old at the time of the shooting, killed brothers Dayne and Drayden Fontaine in a home before proceeding to the Dene High side of La Loche School, killing teacher Adam Wood and teacher’s aide Marie Janvier. He shot and injured seven other people at the school before surrendering to police. He pleaded guilty to the charges associated with the incident in October 2016.

After hearing final arguments in the sentencing hearing of the now-19-year-old youth, Judge Janet McIvor said she would render her decision on Feb. 23, 2018, at the courtroom in La Loche. She said given the amount of evidence, it is extremely important she takes the time to make a good and fair decision.

Friday afternoon, the Crown asserted the youth planned what he was doing, while defence insists the shooter’s intellectual and cognitive problems affected his maturity level, and his inability to cope with the issues in his life.

In his arguments, Crown prosecutor Pouria Tabrizi Reardigan said a youth sentence has an expiry date, and would not address the severity of the violent nature of the act.

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He referenced two tests, moral blameworthiness, and accountability, and spoke about how the youth researched guns, school shootings, and had told a friend his plan a few months prior. He also said it would be reckless to assume the youth’s violent act could be corrected within the time limit of the youth sentence, and a lack of consensus between various experts on the youth’s cognitive deficiencies.

“There wasn’t a lot of agreement between different experts about a treatment plan,” he said.

After court, defence lawyer Aaron Fox said the seriousness of the incident is not enough.

“It is very easy in a case like this to look at it and say that it’s a horribly serious offence, therefore he should be sentenced as an adult, but that’s not what the law is,” he said. “There are other factors and considerations that come into play…obviously, he’s very cognitively challenged, there were a lot of things going on in his world, and could he deal with those problems the way an adult would? Based on what he was facing, he couldn’t.”

About the final decision being given in La Loche, the village’s Mayor Robert St. Pierre said it’s an opportunity for the community to start to come to terms with the reality of the situation.

“There’s always going to be mixed feelings,” he said. “On the healing journey, to overcome that you need to be able to deal with it.”

He said regardless of the outcome, the community will still have to start to cope.

“No matter what it is there’s not going to be happy people,” he said. “We need to come to terms with whatever that decision is, we need to embrace each other, show love to each other…heal.”

The maximum length of a youth sentence is six years in custody and four years supervision. An adult sentence is life in prison with a chance for parole after 10 years.

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath